Check your assumptions at the door.

Covid-19 has shrunk our social network and forced us to decide who was in our bubble and who was out. It gave us permission to let go of relationships that we had outgrown and to embrace those we cherished.

Covid also brought our values to the forefront, and exposed our beliefs and values for others to accept or reject. In some cases, who we choose to exclude from our social circle has as much to do with aligned or misaligned values as it does safety.

These values and beliefs will be tested as we enter into the Christmas season, with family and friends coming together and Christmas parties being planned.

Initially, the decision to include or exclude was practical and based on family grouping. Now with roughly 80% of Canadians vaccinated, inclusion and exclusion often falls along the Covid debate; to mask and vaccinate, or fight for the right to exercise your choice.

With Christmas fast approaching, many of us must make the decision again; who to include and who not to include. While safety is paramount, there is a tendency to let our values and beliefs enter into the equation.

To vaccinate or not is dividing not only our country, but relationships between co-workers, friends, and family. There is a growing distrust for those who have different opinions from oneself. While it’s natural and healthy to have beliefs and values and to rigorously debate them, often our debates are based on assumptions about others.

We lump people who share a common belief together and then add sweeping assumptions about them.

Thinking of others in terms of their group membership is called social categorization. We stop responding to people as individuals and start viewing them as a group of people, ascribing to the group a certain way of thinking, feeling and behaving.

We make generalizations and see all people in the group as the same. We do this when we think of men versus women, old people versus young people, or one race of people versus another race of people.

Our tendency to classify is meant to simplify and order our world. We classify everything–food, plants, vehicles, furniture, and even people. Making assumptions based on these groups helps us to know what to expect. Assumptions help make sense of our world. But when we make assumptions by lumping people into large groups, such as vaxxers and antivaxxers, we forget that within the group are many variations.

One problem with categorizing social groups is that we often distort and exaggerate the differences between two groups of people, while at the same time seeing members of a group as more similar to each other than they actually are.

We overgeneralize and treat all members of a group the same way. We stop being curious about one another and assume we have more information than we actually do.

We also exaggerate our beliefs about others by a common tendency to treat our thoughts as if they are facts. Just because we think something is good or bad for us, doesn’t make it true. Yet we often act as though our thoughts and feelings are all the proof we need.

Our biases against or for others, and our tendency to believe our own thoughts, complicates the debate we now find ourselves in. We may be at odds with friends, family, and co-workers based on their stand on the vaccine debate.

The hardest part of any debate is actively listening to the perspective of the other person, letting go of assumptions, and treating each individual as separate and apart from any group he or she may belong to.

A good debate involves curiosity and the suspension of our biases. It means questioning our facts, sources, and beliefs, realizing that we may not have all the information necessary to make an informed decision.

This year, as families gather together for the holidays, there are decisions that need to be made and questions to be asked.

How do we group our families?

What categorizations do we apply to those closest to us?

Of course, we all must do what is right to protect the health and safety of our close family and friends. However, the delivery of this message, and the subsequent social categorization, is not always prescribed.

Biases hit the hardest to those closest to us, and certainly could colour how we view those people for potentially a very long time afterwards. By checking your biases and assumptions at the door, you are more likely to have an open and productive discussion.

Our natural inclination to classify and group people together is automatic and we often do it without conscious thought.

It takes a concerted effort to identify and suspend our biases and assumptions so we can engage in healthy debate about issues that impact us all.

Jenny DeReis, MC Psych, RCC